to discuss maybe if it's not the most important or or relevant thing are all most pressing issues in our country today that maybe they'll be more will especially to appeal to the conservative base. is that something that is affecting the dialogue and the things that they're choosing to do to discuss yeah i think it really dumbs down the state of political discourse you see you know we talked about in a previous interview but focusing on issues like gay rights and abortion really divisive issues instead of relevant issues like the military industrial complex in those wars these kind of things that dumbs down the debate and what's strange to me though is how are these players even relevant how is sarah palin a relevant person how is michele bachmann a relevant person when she's running as a tea party candidate who's supposedly backing the constitution when she can't even name certain bill of rights i mean things like this just make them it makes you wonder why are these people relevant in the political discourse why is this person even capable of becoming the present united states and soon as she had once told me

that sarah palin was actually insurance for obama's election and when you see things like this it really makes me wonder how are these people even in these positions of power certainly it does make you wonder especially after seeing some of their performance we just saw in that story there well you know how do these politicians affect u.s. credibility worldwide i mean people are watching and seeing this i mean a lot of people around the world think america is a joke american politics are dog and pony show they see people you know sarah palin thinks the africa is a country so when people around the world hear that they think what is really going on. the education system is really dumb in this town i mean these politicians who are governors of states don't understand the continents in the world really is totally dumb than the discourse. how can we put our faith how can americans put their faith and these candidates to make informed foreign policy decisions when they don't seem to have their facts straight. well that's the problem they can't

and that's why you see a lot of elections cycles where people are not voting for their interests they're just voting against candidates so you see a lot of people who are more progressive critical thinkers who are just saying i can't in good conscience vote for someone who doesn't know these things therefore i'm just going to vote against them even though they might not agree with obama's policy and that's really where we're at right now. also want to focus on a hot foreign policy debate our topic today iran and fears that the country has a nuclear bomb or is building a nuclear bomb iran has come forward publicly and said that they don't have one they don't plan on building one we also have top military leaders also confirming this yet we still hear this very harsh and tough rhetoric out of the g.o.p. debates mitt romney all of them said rick santorum almost competing on who can be tougher against iran and when we see this kind of rhetoric coming from them how

does that play and you drumming up war with the country you know we've seen a lot of saber rattling with iran you know the thing is we're already at war with iran were engaging in covert war with them right now the cia is on the ground we're training israeli defense troops they're training drills. like you said leon panetta has already said that they're not building a nuclear weapon so you have this contradictory rhetoric we obviously are already in the country so it's really a low point i mean we're already engaging in covert warfare with iran so it's just a matter of how much people are aware that we're already there on the ground and from foreign policy there is some ignorance is see as to what is going on even in our own country and we have this embarrassing interview circulating with mitt romney where he says that he's not too worried about the poor strained at a time where we have this growing income inequality gap growing in the u.s. and and record poverty rates i mean does this just show how out of touch. that he

is with the reality that many americans face right here in the u.s. you know yeah i mean these politicians are elitists you know they're from an elite of society they're completely out of touch with the poor with the regular citizens needs of this country we saw with the occupy wall street movement they completely try to minimize. the entire movement i just don't think they understand what's going on because when you're getting bribes and millions of dollars from lobbyists for your campaign it's really hard to be in touch with the needs of the average american. really is and so what do you think do you are these politicians are really this ignorant or are they just trying to stick to the talking points that appeal to their base. if they aren't this ignorant and that's really sad that they would have to dumb themselves down to appeal to a base and not you know not know really obvious things geographically and politically so that's really sad if they are this ignorant they shouldn't even be

relevant political figures so either way it's just really strange that these people or the political discourse well at the end of the day seeing this play out as you call it a dog and pony show is this all looking pretty good for president obama oh absolutely absolutely i think it's a really he's a year's election in the bag i mean there's really no one out there that's like i said everyone that i know who even is really upset with obama is going to vote against whoever the g.o.p. candidate is abby is such a pleasure to have you here in the studio thank you for weighing in on this that was journalist and founder of media roots abby barr and. well it's groundhog day here in the u.s. each year numerous furry groundhogs appear and try to predict if spring is near the most famous groundhog as in punxsutawney philadelphia this morning in pennsylvania he predicted another six weeks of winter but as our r.t.

correspondent christine presell explains you could say every day in washington d.c. is groundhog day. it's groundhog day once again but in washington that day comes much more than just once a year when are we going to feed a couple of years ago no matter when you turned on the t.v. you may have seen this what's in the best interest of our country or this i spent my whole life chasing the american dream

or this that these kids are shot or to american green light colored. the weeper of the house then there are those perpetually unresolved issues in congress the white house will ask congress to increase the limit on the federal government's borrowing or the president is asking congress morning creech to the debt ceiling of one point two trillion dollars a little incentive for those job creators not only is extending the payroll tax go to porton for the economy as a whole congress is expected to vote today on a compromise to extend a payroll tax cut for millions of workers or throwing a lifeboat to those who have lost their jobs if you want construction workers rather than schools like this one yes this bill. there was footage of back in the classroom pass this bill while it's groundhog day again by reliving the same day. that fellow. writers. still colors now.

and then there's that other thing i know that i have deeply hurt and disappointed my wife darlene. my children both in and outside the walls of washington in the past few days i've begun to atone for my private failings with my wife so to my children and my entire family i hurt her i hurt you all i hurt my wife a broken record i want to again offer my deep sincere apologies playing the same song i'm truly sorry over and all i can say is that i apologize and over. and that was our correspondent christine for us at how well the capital account is up next on our team let's check in with lauren lister to see what's on the agenda today lauren palays ben bernanke i don't know if you saw he was on capitol hill today testifying about the economy and monetary policy and you know we just have

a couple things we'd like to add so you're is want to know about where legendary investor jim rogers stands on the issues of inflation and savers versus speculators in zero percent interest rates i suggest that they watch we sat down and had a long interview with john rogers and it's a nice boil to what we heard ben bernanke he say on the hill there today sounds like a great interview to look forward to that is coming up on the capital account with lauren lyster but that is going to do it now for the news for more of the stories we covered you can head over to our t.v. dot com slash usa and you can also check out our youtube page it's youtube dot com slash our team america and you can also follow me on twitter at liz wall the capital account with lauren lyster is up next we'll see you right back here and a half hour.

on. morning news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada on giant corporations are all today.

you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

good afternoon and welcome to capital account i'm lauren lyster here in washington d.c. ben bernanke is defending the federal reserve's financial repression of savers. i recognize that it poses our ship. the purpose of our policy though is to create a stronger economy. and he also says there are no signs of inflation lucky for us legendary investor jim rogers is here to tell us how wrong bernie is meanwhile angela merkel is in china reportedly trying to convince the country with three point two trillion dollars worth of foreign exchange reserves just for a little in the direction of the euro zone so one could shelling out for the

trouble debtors by the largest creditor nation in the world will find out and another major euro zone credit pusher christine legarde we just saw her taking her fund raising at first to the world economic forum coming to collect for the i.m.f. but one my of her and more of these heavy hitting women the butting heads will give you the back story let's get to the day's capital again. ok so ben bernanke the federal reserve chairman testified on capitol hill in washington today and you know it was really interesting it really sounds like u.s. congressman who's house budget committee chairman paul ryan actually knows what's

up listen to him talking about quantitative easing and the impact it's had on keeping treasury yields which is the interest the you us pays on its debt so low. when true price is covering our treasury markets like it has in other countries might give us the wake up call we need to get our act in order to fix our problem are we not wiling ourselves in a false sense of security by this intervention in the in the treasury markets but is just the way when asking and here is burning his response our policies are hardly unusual at this point. almost every major industrial central bank excluding canada which had less of a recession than we did has a large balance sheet in low interest rates and my money is doing. that is just fantastic i am so glad that's the rationale now i am not saying paul ryan is off the hook ok congress has been a disaster at dealing with the fiscal side of things but listen to ryan advocating

for savers. are you concerned at all about the very very very low interest payments that these savers are getting from these kinds of fixed income assets which are which are hitting our savings and investment side of the economy and we are but here's bernanke you defending his policies saying the purpose of it is a stronger economy. if you don't have a strong economy if you have weak economy you're not going to get good returns on all the other assets ok so there's his rationale now this is a conversation we often have on this show and in fact we were just debating it yesterday and you know the fact is we're not central bankers here we're not economists we don't have ph d.'s we're not billionaire investor we don't have a financial show where we are trying to get to the bottom of all of this economic craziness the very best we can because we care desperately we think a lot is at stake this is really important so i took the topic again to legendary

investor jim rogers if you don't know him who most people should he was co-founder of quantum fund with billionaire investor george soros was his partner there he's also a commodities guru author of many books including this one a gift to my children a father's lessons for life and investing i told him you know mr rogers i think savers are getting unfairly punished but i've been talking to people lately who say you know the economy is bad zero interest rates are helping savers are making money but right now no one is so this is just a deal i asked mr rogers if he could clear up just how zero percent interest rates are helping the economy you look up early just to tell us. person i'm delighted to be here there are not many people i would come straight to the gym for to talk to but you're one of them there are just left the job. i don't know to whom you've been speaking but that is madness you have to have people who save and invest if you're going to build an economy i mean i don't know any economist in history karl

marx even realized you have to build up capital in order to build up your economy so if you destroy the class which saves and invest you have no future you may have a present you may even have a next week or next year but long term you're destroying a whole class of people that whole and saving at the that whole investing ethic and then how do you build an economy and the idea that there's no inflation lar i mean those people must not shop i presume they have their bubble or do their shopping for them because everybody knows that prices are going up all you have to do is go and buy anything to these days and you know that and even last week you know the federal reserve in the united states changed their way of measuring inflation yet again they've changed their inflation measurement several times in the last few decades last week mr bernanke you said we're going to change the way we do it again and guess what the new way shows us and collation but there is inflation lauren ok

so the people that say you know government and measure it's don't show a lot of inflation and they're pretty pathetic so i doubt if people jeff zucker is that they're looking at these government figures. and you must have learned by now that if you listen to the government in the government to get your investment advice you're going to go broke. and by the way the government the russian government the u.s. government the germans those that think it's all good john these governments the orderly you would know because you know about actually making money which is why i know that you know you're the expert on these things i want to look at the federal funds rate if i can bring up that chart for our viewers and it shows that during each recession since one thousand nine hundred eighty the fed has taken rates lower and lower and lower so now we're adding the fed is keeping them there at zero for a few more years according to their recent remarks what impact does it have that we literally have nowhere left to go with rates it shows that the reserve is totally

incompetent and in trouble they don't have a clue what they're doing nothing they've done in the past several years has been right if you look at the statements of mr greenspan and mr bernanke you see that everything everything they've said over the fairest fewer years has been totally wrong and we know that their policies have been wrong all this does not work it did not work in japan and the japanese of the last two decades the japanese stock market today lauren is eighty percent below where it was twenty two years ago that's not a typo eight percent below where it was twenty two years ago they tried this absurd policy didn't work there it's not going to work here do you think that's where the u.s. has headed to see a stock market decline that much and a lot of decades. well we've already lost one of those we already have one last decade as you know the stock market is not not done very much in the list ten or twelve years the economy certainly hasn't done much in the last ten or twelve years

it would but it's just a real measures of course we're going to have another bed at least what worries me lauren is we're going to have another two or three bad decades where these guys are gone and i think interest rates that have that are as there are threats that doesn't just impact the u.s. because the u.s. is the global reserve currency what impact does that have globally when rates are capped at zero and islam ultimately it's building up huge distortions in the world economy as you know the u.s. is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world and our debts are going higher and higher and higher they're going to these imbalances are going to lead to more currency turmoil more inflation turmoil all over the world most of the world already knowledge is that there is inflation i care i can't think of many countries that don't acknowledge that there's inflation except except the united states we say there's no inflation so astonishing to me longer than everybody else in the world has inflation and admits that the united states i don't know how long

journalist and the public is going to accept this alan kohler this is leading to a huge distortions in the world imbalances and we're all going to pay for them so then speaking of those in balance and the cost of those and balances i was speaking with someone who believes that the key to bringing manufacturing jobs back to the u.s. is the competitive dollar that if the u.s. devalues the dollar further that will keep manufacturing jobs from going overseas and will bring them home is that then false. well that's a common theory and it's sometimes works in the short term it's sometimes works in the medium term it is never worked in the long term many countries that try this repeat of the if you just don't price law and yes you have an advantage for a while but in the end you've got to have the back up and everything else. devaluing the currency making your currency go out does give you a competitive advantage in the short term but i know of no country in history

succeeded in the doing that currency and so in one prize and shoddy goods it's never were not in the long term ok so say they tried to do that now in the u.s. because they want they believe it will work in the short term more or whatever and ben bernanke he does devalue the dollar by printing more money what could be the collateral damage and and intended consequences of that one of the first is you and me i mean we're americans and our cost of living and everything is going to go through the roof and everything we buy is going to go higher and higher in price and we are going to suffer so that some and some businesses some industrial is can do better people will have jobs but are there it is their standard of living better probably not because their costs go through the roof a standard of living goes down that's the first collateral damage or three hundred million of us american citizens and american taxpayers we're the first fell out of

that and that is not what they're trying to achieve with that i don't think one thing that i wasn't clear on that i've heard people on different sides of it say but you would know best because you've been in the trenches you are in the trenches when we talk about wall street and speculators and what they benefit more from and overvaluing of the dollar a devaluation of the dollar. it depends who you're talking of just got to say if the dollar goes down three hundred million americans have a lower standard of living because everything we buy. increases and prized and we and we. if you have a prized currency then obviously it's good it's good for american citizens a sound i never heard many people many many knowledgeable people say that they're basing their currency is good for a country but an overpriced currency wars that you can do this and we can all go to paris or go to paris for the weekend if we won't do that you have. to get by

a lot of things from abroad i quality goods from abroad yeah i was just dense what's a lot of my money didn't go very far at all speaking of this issue germany has a trade surplus china is one of the largest importer of german goods there the two of the world's top exporters the euro is relatively you know at least stronger than the dollar so does this kind of add to what you're saying that it takes more than devaluing a currency to make an export economy in the long haul. oh absolutely germany and japan both have circuses with you know trade surpluses with the united states and their currencies have been going up against united states for decades that cameras are the japanese yen is up about five hundred percent against the dollar over the past several decades and they still have a balance of trade surplus with the united states and with most of the world no no no you cannot i mean that the politicians like to blame it on the chinese the

chinese have big trade deficits with many other countries including germany and japan as you just pointed up and yet those current countries have a much higher cost of doing business much higher labor we do and yet there's still extremely competitive and it's largely because of quality and service and being attentive to the customers quality and speaking of germany merkel is going to be in china looking for beijing's support on the ailing euro she reportedly wants china to contribute via the i.m.f. to a financial firewall to stem contagion from the euro zone crisis what do you think china will and should say to her. well i have. i wouldn't i'm not buying european bonds if i were the chinese i would say no however the chinese do have another reason that they might it would be very cheap foreign aid for them it would be very cheap ways to buy influence and power if you will because let's say they spend

a few scores of billions of dollars buying bonds in europe then europe has to pay a whole lot more attention to them at the i.m.f. the world bank at the u.n. had said earlier said are you out the europeans have to be much nicer to the chinese if that happens and so i mean as an investment i wouldn't do it not throw a long term investor if i'm trying to buy something else and that's another consideration and you said that you're certainly not buying europe and bonds right now right that's why you just said yeah i have that is right ok so it may be a very good speculation right now but i'm not very good at speculating i just like that but long term investments and it looks as though things are going to be better in europe for a while for a while while it's issues just like to get through the next election but longer term it's still huge problem and you think. and with those political interests are we seeing bank bailouts and we're just not hearing about like hear from john rogers

about it at first their closing market numbers. thanks. to the. people calling like you said for free and fair elections. again we're still reporting from the clinton i think you can hear behind me loud explosions.

pepper spray just burn dries right right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. the somewhat stronger than anything you buy on. thousands of farms and stronger than any one of you ever put your.

welcome back to capital account german chancellor angela merkel is in china reportedly seeking a little cash from china to help europe also reportedly pressuring china to do more on iran now according to reports so far sounds like the chinese premier is saying iran i don't think so stop politicising our commercial interests this european bailout fund though that i'll consider so why what would be the benefit of that well i asked john rogers and also he told us about his investment outlook for china but first more on europe. you've been critical of the eurozone monetizing the debt and i think it was interesting i was in switzerland i was at davos and some of the bankers there were saying that the l t r o has been very successful in averting a credit crisis and a liquidity crisis but politicians did the l.t.r. o. technocrats in order to try to get these banks to buy.